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This is all fine, but he doesn't suggest an alternative. Which, of course, there aren't any. Which is the reason it's a problem.
by endlessvoid94 12y ago
This is all fine, but he doesn't suggest an alternative. Which, of course, there aren't any. Which is the reason it's a problem.
- kitsune_ 12y agoDon't social scientists and economists spend a huge amount of time learning statistical software such as SPSS or Stata or Gauss? Why bother with Excel?
- dagw 12y agoNot in my experience (economics). An econometric class used Stata and I know a couple of statistics classes used SPSS, but beyond that it was use whatever you want, just get the job done. And for most people "whatever you want" was Excel, with a few people using Matlab. I never saw anyone using Stata when they didn't have to. Admittedly one reason for this was that all student machines throughout the university had Excel installed and all the students had Excel on their laptops, while Stata was only available in a couple computer labs. And it's pretty much the same once you get out to the working world. No matter where go in the world or what office you walk into, if you sit down in front on windows machine, it will have Excel. Convincing your boss to buy you Stata or SPSS just so you can do a couple of quick statistical tests that you are perfectly capable of doing in Excel is just too much of a hassle most of the time.